Posted: Aug 14 2007 at 11:59am | IP Logged

Anyone have any good insight on these 'Dealership for Life' programs offered by some dealerships ?  Thoughts ?

So far I have found these to come in various different flavors:

1.  One dealership I went too has a life program that will replace tires on your vehicle for the life of the vehicle when they go below a min tread spec.  Ofcourse you must have all scheduled services done there.  I did not like this one because if you miss one scheduled oil change then its over and it is only tires.  That is it, just the tires are covered for life.

2.  Another dealership had a life program the offered free oil changes, tire rotation, and car washes (car wash 1 per 30 days) for life.  It also covered the motor for as long as I owned the vehicle (including all engine internals, timing chain, camshaft, valve springs, oil pump etc.) at no extra charge.  Again, all scheduled maintenance must be done at this dealer.  This one seemed pretty appealing to me.  ( wound up purchasing my new Frontier here based on a number of other reasons, but thought the program was decent as well).

3.  Another dealership said (I did not see any paperwork), that they would do all scheduled maintenance free for 5 years.  (All !!)  Thats pretty good too, except I live too far away from them and don't really like the place from my impression.

In any of these cases if you move away its over, you will lose the coverage.  Luckily I know I am going to live here for the rest of my life or at least the next 20 years.

Any experience you have with plans of this nature would be appreciated.  Please comment.  Thanks.